Prevention of food-borne illness has been of paramount concern for the food industry, the public, and the regulatory agencies. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) conducted an evaluation to better quantify the impact of food-borne diseases on health in the U.S. (Mead, et al., Food-Related Illness and Death in the United States, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Ga., USA, 2003). The report estimated that food-borne diseases cause approximately 76 million illnesses, 325,000 hospitalizations, and 5,000 deaths in the U.S. each year. Known pathogens account for an estimated 14 million illnesses, 60,000 hospitalizations, and 1,800 deaths. Three pathogens, Salmonella, Listeria, and Toxoplasma, are responsible for 1,500 deaths each year, more than 75% of those deaths caused by known pathogens, while unknown agents account for the remaining 62 million illnesses, 265,000 hospitalizations, and 3,200 deaths. Other food-borne microorganisms that are of public health concern include Aeromonas hydrophila, Arcobacter butzleri, Bacillus cereus, Campylobacter jejuni, Escherichia coli, and Staphylococcus aureus. Fred R. Shank, Director of the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition of the Food and Drug Administration testified before the U.S. Congress that the yearly cost of food-borne illness in the U.S. is between $7.7 and $23 billion.
Salmonella is one of the more common intestinal infections with potentially fatal consequences. The CDC reports that every year approximately 40,000 cases of salmonellosis are reported in the U.S. Because many milder cases are not diagnosed or reported, the actual number of infections is likely much higher. Salmonellosis is more common in warmer months than during the winter months. And the most likely to have severe infections are young children, the elderly, and the immuno-compromised. It is estimated that approximately 600 persons die each year with acute salmonellosis.
Salmonella and many other microorganisms can adhere to poultry, meat, and other food tissues, making removal of the microorganisms difficult with rinsing alone. Consequently, treatments including irradiation, chemical treatment, and physical processing have been used to address the problem of microorganism contamination of food. For example, trisodium phosphate has been used in poultry processing to eliminate Salmonella typhimurium. However, studies have provided conflicting results on efficacy of trisodium phosphate against treating Salmonella. 
A common problem with many treatments is that they may be effective against one type of microorganism but not others. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,366,983 discloses a composition containing an aqueous solution of a quaternary ammonium compound (“QAC”). It has been reported, however, that QAC's including alkyl pyridinium halides (such as cetylpyridinium chloride (“CPC”) and cetylpyridinium bromide (“CPB”)) were effective in removing Salmonella but not other types of microorganisms. It has also been found that treatment with CPC requires contacting the meat or poultry with large quantities of CPC for long periods of time. This requires costly downstream processing steps to remove the CPC. Typically, this is done by recapturing the product as it is sprayed and hauled out, similar to toxic waste.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,855,940 also discloses a composition containing a QAC for inhibiting attachment of and removing pathogenic toxin-producing Escherichia contamination. This patent discloses a composition containing QAC selected from the group consisting of alkyl pyridinium, tetraalkylammonium, and alkylalicyclic ammonium salts in an aqueous solution.
Other treatment methods include treatment with a chlorine solution or with a solution of tri-sodium phosphate. Chlorine solutions have been found ineffective in eliminating all of the pathogenic microorganisms. Also, when chlorine is added to a solution or water, the efficacy of the chloride is only as good as the mole concentration of the chloride ion. The concentration of chloride ion can decrease rapidly due to the ion interacting with, for example, nascent oxygen. Tri-sodium phosphate has been used during the reprocessing stage where the inside and outside of the poultry is sanitized. This process, however, requires filtering the reprocessor's water before disposal in order to remove tri-sodium phosphate. Still other common antimicrobial compositions that are used, while effective on some surfaces, can not be used on food surfaces due to their toxicity.
Presently, there are no known effective antimicrobial compositions that are effective against a broad range of microorganisms and can be safely be used on food surfaces. Accordingly, there is a need for antimicrobial compositions and methods for treating contaminated food such as poultry and meat to eliminate a broad range of microorganisms. Further there is also a need for antimicrobial compositions that can be effectively be used on other surfaces, such as floors, coolers, tables, trays, and the like. The antimicrobial compositions and methods disclosed herein meet these and other needs.